Monday, January 01, 2007

What a year! And then 2007...

It's been such a weird month - running and otherwise. I've actually managed to get quite a lot of running in, particularly towards the end of the month. No long runs, but daily 45 minutes which is kind of my maintenance running when life is too busy to prioritise running or even choose and focus on a schedule. Not every day - some days I've just been tired to do anything.

Looking back, it's been a crazy month. My brave sick, then recovering son has been with me for the past 5 weeks without much of a break. We had lots of family and friends with us for Christmas and New Year and there was lots of cooking to do in this time. Very little time for myself but then, after the harrowing time in hospital, it was good to be at home having fun and time with everyone. At times, the pressure of cooking yet another meal or unloading yet another dishwasher got too much, but most of the time I was able to remind myself that I wanted this and that I really enjoy looking after everyone. However, without my runs (particularly on Christmas Eve, Christmas day and boxing day) I would have gone nuts. 45 minutes alone with my iShuffle and Steve Runner or other running podcasts and I was restored.

And now January - the time to settle back to normal. I used to hate it when my mother said that life should go back to normal, but maybe it's age - I now realise that it's a good thing. I'm back down to London tomorrow with my son, hopefully for the last time for a while. He can then (hopefully) go back to nursery a few days a week, I'll get some time back to myself to sort myself out and my running will come properly back on track again. It needs to because, for one thing, this holiday season I have really packed on the pounds. The combination of available sweet things (normally I don't keep temptation in the house), tiredness, alcohol and excessive emotionality have led to some serious overeating sessions and I am now 5 pounds heavier than I want to be. Aarrgghh. Time to prioritise healthy living and healthy running and leave that champagne alone for a while..

Goals for 2007? A marathon, probably in autumn, though I'm not sure which one. I'd like to go out to the States again for one, but I'm not sure about doing another big city one. I'd quite like to do a smaller one. There's one in October in Maine on Mt. Desert Island which is seriously tempting. Otherwise, if I'm being sensible, I might run one in the UK, and possible the Nottingham Marathon in September. The only reason I have avoided running one locally in the past is that it is such an enormous deal / effort to get oneself trained up for a marathon and if you run one locally I just know I'm going to come home to a pile of ironing and cooking supper - anticlimactic when compared to drinks at the Waldorf (after the New York Marathon) or champagne in our hotel room (after the Chicago marathon). Still - the upside is that I could get loads of supporters to come and watch and encourage, and that I could save my money for my friend Dawnie's 40th birthday trip to Napa Valley in 2008.. Other races I'm running are a St. Valentine's 30K (I think, even though it's quite a hard course and quite hard core - everyone running it is very fast) and the Lincoln 10K (my local race and I'm raising money for my daughter's school this year).

So now, all I have to do is train. Next post will be on my schedule - I'm going to do some research in the next few days and decide on how to train this season. Also, now I'm with a running club I can discuss this with my fellow runners (and not bore all my non-running friends).